Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.
Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Thank you, whoever nominated my comment for an AAQC and whoever accepted it, always an honour. I know this is more of a meta-thread question, and has probably been discussed on them before, but since it's fresh in my mind I'd like to ask it here: does anyone else find the wording of the rule against consensus-building to be a little misleading? It was on my mind as something to avoid while writing the comment, and came up in the discussion, and definitely made me think it could be clarified. Here is the full text:
I think this is a straightforwardly good rule, but the phrasing of the summary appears to confuse a lot of people. "Building consensus" in casual use can cover many kinds of valid arguments ("I think people should believe...", "I think many people believe...", "I observe people acting like...", etc., even bracketing that building a consensus is an inherent side-effect of winning an argument), and the text of the rule doesn't really refer directly to ideological conformity (it sort of reminds me of how people use "begging the question," referring to something very similar, incorrectly because of confusion with ordinary language). It also feels a little ambiguous how much the spirit of the law is violated by people coming in arguing "All good people believe X and only bad people believe Y" as a way to bait out people who believe Y and attack them as Bad. I would suggest something like "Don't assume consensus or enforce what you believe to be consensus." If we want to say something about ideological conformity, maybe an additional sentence explaining that.
I think "consensus building" is not the best term. I'd like everybody to think that the things I think are true and moral and good are indeed true and moral and good. I would argue with people and tell them why I think is is the case, and try to convince them to agree with me. On some, very rare occasions, I would succeed. If I were smarter and better at this, I would succeed a lot, and thus there would be a consensus building around those things. I don't think doing this is bad and the result of it is bad.
And I don't think this is what the rule about "consensus building" is against. I think they target the behavior where you pretend the consensus already exists, and, moreover, if you're not a part of it, it's because there's something fundamentally wrong with you and your position, per se, prior to any argument, is illegitimate. There can be no proper discussion when one of the sides presupposes only their side has a legitimate position.
I think it's legitimate to refuse to argue with a position that one considers utterly ridiculous. Nobody owes anyone else the discussion, it should be a product of mutual engagement. So if I think some person is not worth my time to engage, I would not. I like arguing, but I have my limits. For some positions, I am going to just block that person and ignore them forever (for me, it's antisemites, but everybody may have their preferences). But I also recognize explicitly that this is the opposite of discussion, and try to use this approach only sparingly. If there is a discussion, then presupposing the opponent can not have a legitimate argument should not be a part of it. I think that's what "no consensus building" rule is about, or it should be.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link